


can't make this wrong when I see your face

by beverlymarshian



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Domestic, Everybody Lives, First Kiss, M/M, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25103785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beverlymarshian/pseuds/beverlymarshian
Summary: After eight months of living together in their New York apartment, Eddie decides to tell Richie he loves him. Richie doesn't quite understand.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 63
Kudos: 792





	can't make this wrong when I see your face

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO this is based off a tweet thread I made and got carried away with, and now it's 12.5k of neurotic Eddie yearning. Brief references to weed and alcohol consumption, not central to the story. Thanks Bee for letting me steal your identity. Dedicated to all my fwens, especially writing sprints, but all of you. Title from Stay Away by CRJ. Enjoy!

"Do you think Richie likes me?"

Eddie has the phone squeezed between his shoulder and his ear, head crooked at an awkward angle, tongue poked between his teeth. The background noise through the phone is loud, as it often is in the Marsh-Hanscom household (not married, Bev still mid-divorce, but the hyphenation still feels right). Today the sounds are from their third guest room, where Bev sits on the floor, legs crossed, taking a break to talk to him on the phone while Ben resumes the repainting. It's going to be a home office, something for them to share, where Ben can do whatever architects do at home and Bev has the space to work on her designs. The two of them were quick to move in together, an exceedingly tasteful brownstone on the Upper East Side, just on the other side of the water from his place in Astoria. From their place.

He wasn't really sure what to call the apartment where he and Richie lived together, Richie footing the bill ( _only for now_ , Eddie insisted, and Richie just waved his tax return at Eddie) but the both of them treat it like home. When they first moved in together, it was a nondescript place. Newly renovated, modern, 800 square feet, two bedrooms but a shared bathroom, white empty walls, unfurnished. Eight months later, it has become a home, for both of them. Richie let him pick the furniture as long as Eddie took his credit card, which made Eddie annoyed enough that he intentionally purchased the more expensive options on his list, although in retrospect he thinks perhaps he was playing right into Richie’s hand. The place was all warm tones, light creams and tasteful beiges against warm merlots. The furniture was first, because furniture was easy, Eddie thought—he could buy his own when Richie left, or if Richie didn't want to keep it, he could buy it off of Richie.

The line between furniture and decor was tricky—was a butter yellow vase with concentric blue rings “decor” because they agreed it would look nice on the console table, or was it furniture because it functionally, theoretically, could hold flowers? It hadn't yet, because Eddie kept meaning to ask Bev for a florist recommendation near him but had not yet decided if he was only asking her this because she was a woman, so he had decided to keep it to himself.

The vase was only the beginning of the end of the furniture/decor division.

It wasn't until a Sunday, three months after they moved in together, when they wandered from a brunch spot in Hunters Point into a nearby art gallery, a little shop with pooling natural light and beechwood accents, that Eddie conclusively decided they had crossed into decor territory. Richie bought an odd painting, bright splashes of yellow on canvas, a distorted queen of diamonds, that Eddie pretended to hate but now, if they went their separate ways, had decided he would use the coffee table as a bargaining chip if it meant he could keep it.

Decor is trickier than furniture, he thinks, because while the furniture is functional and easier to replace, the decor in their place has grown more personal. There are pieces that are clearly Richie Pieces or ones that are clearly Eddie Pieces, but things they agreed on—a plush, fluffy, green throw blanket they kept draped over their wine red couch, a beige area rug with diamond cutouts that let their dark hardwood peek through, the series of houseplants Eddie bought in their corresponding pots picked out by Richie, all funky patterns, many with chipping paint that gave them character. These would be harder to sort upon separation, Eddie thought.

Eddie kept waiting for Richie to go back home, to LA, to his life. Increasingly, however, Richie looks to be settling. Eddie hesitates to say it, worried that if he asks about it, if he tries to reach out, Richie will change his mind, or worse, will already have an answer— _oh, shit, Eds, I meant to tell ya, I'm out of here once summer hits again. Not doing another muggy July in New York!_ So Eddie doesn't ask, he just listens as Richie fires most of his LA team and hires a whole new New York cadre. The only of his LA hires he keeps on his payroll is his assistant, Bee, which drives his NY team crazy. Not because they dislike Bee—Eddie thinks this would be impossible—but because they're the only one across the country and they control Richie's entire schedule. Eddie thinks he did this on purpose, to keep his New York team on their toes. Richie has never corrected him on this.

And instead of going home, Richie sits on long video calls with Bee, often slumped against Eddie on the couch so he can say hi. Bee is bright, young, always wearing large glasses that Richie insists he could rock (he could not—they're too chic), and most important, for Richie, is straight-forward. Bee will be the first to tell him the difference between gentle and firm deadlines, gives thorough feedback on his new material, never mean but incredibly honest, careful, well-thought out. Every call Eddie asks Bee if he pays them enough, Bee says no, and Richie calls his agent to give them a raise. Eddie and Bee have an understanding.

Recently, however, Bee was video calling ( _facetiming, old man,_ Richie said) from Richie's place in LA, a sprawling single-story house with modern-looking, unremarkable furniture that was nothing like their New York apartment, pointing at various personal items as Richie either told Bee to put it in Box A and send it to Goodwill, or put it in Box B and send it to New York. Last month the box had finally arrived and within days their place had new additions—more of Richie's button ups in patterns Eddie couldn't have imagined, the ugliest fridge magnets from across America that Richie picked up on his last tour, a series of unmatched mugs of various shapes and sizes, each with a more absurd exterior than the next. The first one Eddie picked up had a cartoon lemon that said "Hey mom, thanks for squeezing me out!" and the second he picked up had a picture of Justin Trudeau subtitled "speak moistly to me", after which Eddie decided to stop looking. Eddie didn't have trinkets, had left Myra's place with his clothes and nothing else, but they made the house feel more like a home.

All of this was to say that Richie didn't seem to be going anywhere and it was driving Eddie increasingly fucking insane because if Richie wasn't going to leave, Eddie had to leave, right? Someone had to go? It wasn't normal to live with your best friend in your forties when both of you made enough money to afford their own New York apartments?

The crux of it was of course, that Eddie didn't want to leave either. He didn't leave once he and Myra entered settlement discussions even though Janine from work mentioned a perfect little place near the office that had opened up in her building. He didn't leave after their divorce was finalized, when his assets were less tenuous and his legal bills were paid. He didn't leave when he and Myra sold their place and he got a tidy little sum to put aside.

They never talked about it either, Richie leaving or Eddie leaving. They had, instead, settled into what Eddie would call the first routine he has ever really enjoyed. On weekdays, Eddie goes to work. Some days he picks up dinner on the way home, when Richie is caught up in work or in meetings that are ramping up as he edges closer to the comeback he has put off for months. Other days he comes home to Richie cooking dinner, sometimes squinting at a recipe on his iPad, sometimes on the phone or video calling ( _Facetiming_ ) with Maggie, cooking along with her. On weekends, they sleep in and go for brunch, Richie's favourite meal, one that Eddie thought before was something reserved for people like Myra and her friends from her spin class but now feels like something the two of them do together.

The only thing that there was no place for in their routine was a concrete discussion of what exactly they were doing and how long before it fell apart, or if it even had to fall apart at all, if there was anything tenable about them possibly living together until further, very distant, if any, notice.

"Eddie? Are you still there?" Bev asks, amused, on the other side of the line. He drops the dish he's been washing for fuck knows how long into the sink and slams off the tap.

"Yes. Sorry. Thinking about—" _Richie, always fucking Richie, all the fucking time_ "—groceries. What did you say?"

"You asked if Richie likes you. Of course he likes you," Bev says, patient, but a tease curling around her voice.

Eddie shakes his head, even though she can't see him. "No, I mean—I mean _likes me-_ likes me."

He hates the words as soon as they leave his mouth and he hates them even more when Bev laughs, then Ben, because _of course he's on fucking speakerphone._ Unfortunately, shy of saying the other l-word, which he fears would show his hand a little more than he is prepared for while covered in sudsy kitchen water and having a breakdown in the middle of a cool February afternoon, it is the best way he can think to phrase it.

"Shut the fuck up. Shut up. I'm calling Mike instead," he threatens, although every time he calls Mike about this he just tells him to _go for it!_ and _talk to Richie about how he feels_ , like Eddie is looking for constructive advice and not just looking to complain.

"No you won't," Bev says. "Do you think he likes you?"

Eddie groans, turning around to lean against the sink counter, hands dripping suds onto the ground. He hates it. He should rinse off his arms. He also thinks that if he adds anything else to his list of tasks (have a breakdown about Richie, complain to Bev, try to stop saying stupid things) he might combust.

"Kind of? Sometimes? But other times I think—no, like, why wouldn't he have kissed me by now? Or why wouldn't he have said anything? Or, like, why doesn't he say I love you to me?"

"You love him?" Ben asks, voice kind, like a man who knows the answer to the question he asks but is too polite to say it.

Eddie scowls. "That's not what I mean. I mean, like, on the phone."

"Honey, we've talked about this. You need to tell us the beginning of your train of thought before we get to the caboose," Bev says. Richie would have giggled at the word _caboose_ and Eddie would have wiped his soapy arms on Richie's shirt in revenge.

Eddie's knees give out and he sinks to the ground, not sitting down—it has been three days since he mopped, because Richie is gently edging him away from compulsive cleaning habits and he looks so proud when Eddie tells him what he hasn't cleaned, so Eddie's trying—but crouching low, back against the cupboard under the sink. Being closer to the ground doesn't help him think, not really, but he _thinks_ it helps him think, and that's close enough, right?

"Okay. Okay. Richie's on the phone a lot, with industry people, but also with, like, you guys. All of us," Eddie starts, taking a breath. He has been working on his breathing, on trying to slow down, with mixed results.

"Yes, he calls me more than my mom," Ben supplies helpfully. Eddie nods in agreement, jerky little movements. Bev adds, "And he barely texts, like an old person."

"Yes!" Eddie yelps, because even _he_ texts Richie more than Richie texts him.

Sometimes he will text asking if they're low on oat milk and Richie's contact picture will light up his phone and he gets roped into a ten minute conversation about anything except oat milk. At the end of the call, Richie hangs up, usually without answering his question and usually only because he has another incoming call, and eventually responds to the text.

"So, he calls Stan and Patty, like, everyday. Usually over breakfast. And at the end of the call he tells them he loves them, right?" Bev _hmms_ in response, but lets him continue. "And he calls Bill and Mike twice a week, after Last Podcast episodes air, so they can dissect them, you know, like nerds. Right? And at the end he says _I love you_."

Bev lets out an exhale. "I think I know where this is going, but continue."

He hadn't planned on stopping, not now that he's started, but he appreciates the gesture.

"We talk on the phone all the time. He calls me like, four times a day. I leave the house in the mornings and he phones me in the car. I phone him at lunch. He phones me on the way home. And we live together! And he has never once said that he loves me?" Eddie says, giving up and wiping his sopping hands on his pants. It's a laundry day.

"So you think him not saying he loves you means he doesn't _like-like_ you?" Bev asks, voice edging a little further from patience into incredulity. "I hate to break it to you, honey, but I am rather certain he doesn't have feelings for the rest of us."

Eddie closes his eyes and bangs his head back against the cupboard door. It rattles on the hinge, still loose from the last time Richie tried to fix it, crouched low to the ground with their measly toolkit while Eddie held his phone in front of his face, playing a Youtube video on basic cupboard repair. It had held for a few weeks before coming loose, which Richie counted as a testament to his handyman skills and Eddie insisted meant he never properly fixed it to begin with.

"But why wouldn't he _say it_?" he asks, voice coming out whinier than he intends it. He clears his throat but it's too late, he can hear Bev stifling a laugh. Better to pretend it didn't happen. "And what if it is the inverse? That he does feel—something. For me. Why wouldn't he just say it?"

He can hear sounds in the background, something being placed down, two bodies shuffling together. Now he has made Ben abandon the slow-going repainting to deal with this. Wonderful. Wonderful. Shoutout to his therapist for convincing him it was okay to lean on his friends. Now the Marsh-Hanscom office will go another week unfinished.

"Why are you so afraid to say something?" Bev asks, not unkindly.

Eddie stares into their living room, where the kitchen spills naturally into it, past the little dining table only big enough for four but they successfully managed to squeeze all eight of them around at Christmas. The centre of the table is adorned with a little turtle figurine, made of smooth, soft wood and painted alternating brilliant hues of emerald and sea foam. It's like a little island in the red, swimming sea of their garnet table runner. They bought it at the Chelsea Flea market one rainy day last fall and it lived in various spots around their house since. His name is Matty.

How could they decide who got the turtle if either of them moved out? Sure, it was Richie's excited little gasp (soft, high-pitched like the rest of his voice, almost the exact same little gasp from when they were kids and it always made Eddie's chest feel like it as about to burst) that drew his attention to it, but Eddie had elbowed him out of the way to pay for it before Richie could so much as say anything. Richie had put him in the bathroom first, but his little shell started to absorb the moisture in the air. Richie blamed this on him, of course, but not everyone can take five minute showers. So Eddie moved Matty to the kitchen, but Richie, all-limbs, knocked him from nearly every surface he placed him. Finally they agreed on the dining table and he had been safe there. After all Matty had been through, the answer was clear—they simply couldn't separate the turtle from either of them.

He must take too long to answer because Bev lets out a long-suffering sigh on the other end of the line. "Listen. Richie loves you—"

"You don't _know that_ , unless he told you, and you're just not telling me he told you, which is _really unfair_ when I have been calling you about this for months."

"She wasn't finished, Eddie," Ben says kindly. Eddie bites the inside of his cheek to stop from talking, counting down from ten in his head, then back up.

"I don't know how he feels about you, romantically," Bev resumes. "But he loves you so much that it won't matter if he doesn't feel the same way about you. I think it would be impossible to lose him."

Impossible. Impossible. It's not impossible, Eddie thinks. He thinks there are many things he could do that would make Richie leave. He could take up serial killing, to start. Or an all-consuming toy train hobby. Impossible was so big, and so unrealistic. He knew it wasn't impossible to drive Richie away. He just knew he hadn't done it yet—that the baggage from the divorce hadn't done it, that his slowly-shrinking prescription regime hadn't done it, that his anxieties and his thing about cleaning hadn't done it, that the frayed edges of his temper at the end of the work day hadn't done it. But something could.

And _even if_ it was impossible, like Bev seemed to think, like Ben seemed to agree as he mumbled encouragements through the phone, they were more intimately acquainted with impossibilities than perhaps anyone else—the impossibility of defeating It twice, the impossibility of forgetting each other, the impossibility of remembering each other and being bonded now, the impossibility of Eddie surviving, of them all surviving. Impossibility was no less scary, not really.

"I can hear you," Bev says suddenly, cutting through his stream of consciousness. "Whatever worst case scenario you are punting around in that little head of yours isn't going to happen."

"My head's not little," he answers. Then he sighs. "What if he leaves, Bev?"

"Oh, honey. He won't leave. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but you should talk to him about it."

He has something to say about that, that's for sure, probably an accusation that her and Mike have been talking about him _again_ , because they have, and he loves them and trusts them but he needs them for different things so they can't just be agreeing all the time. Bev is saved by the sound of Richie at the door, struggling with his keys, swearing under his breath.

"Gotta go. He's home."

"Okay, have a good chat!" Bev says cheerily.

"Love you both," he says, and gets an eerily harmonized _love you_ in return.

The words don't fall from his mouth as easily as they do from Richie's, but he has started ending his phone calls to Bev with it. It's the easiest with her, and Ben by extension. They have all grown close since Derry but the two of them most of all, their parallel divorces, his easier than hers but both of them going through the same thing, in their own ways. He has said it to Mike too now, because Mike offers his love freely and without restraint and it's easy to love someone like that back. Richie gives his _I love you_ s without restraint too, with one notable exception.

The door swings open and he can hear Richie kicking off his shoes, shoving his key into the bowl they keep by the door. If Richie doesn't put his wallet and keys there then they spend twenty minutes in the morning searching for them until Eddie is nearly late for work and the keys are recovered from the top of the microwave and his wallet is fished out of the couch cushions.

"I tried phoning but I think you were on with someone else, you won't believe this," Richie calls down the hallway, toeing off his shoes. Eddie smiles when he hears Richie bend down to place the shoes on the rack.

"Sorry, I was talking to Bev," he calls back.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just painting the office. What won't I believe?"

"Right, yeah," his voice nears as he walks down the short hallway. "Well, we've been scouting a place to open the comeback tour and—"

Richie stops short when he rounds the corner into the kitchen, mouth still open, and stares at Eddie. He should have gotten off the floor. Richie's eyes dart between him, the damp spots on the knees of his sweatpants where he dried his hands, drying spots of sudsy water on the floor, then back up to the abandoned dishes in the sink.

"You okay, buddy?"

"Peachy," he grits out between his teeth. "Taking a break from dishes. That a problem?"

"Nooooooo," Richie says, long and slow. He doesn't push, though. He's good about that. He knows where to push and where to drop it, despite first impressions. Instead, he crosses the room to stick out a hand.

Eddie stares at the outstretched hand, the wide palm, deep grooves, skin dry from the crisp winter air but better since Eddie finally convinced him to use hand cream without washing it off. His fingers are long and thick. His hands are big enough to wrap easily around Eddie's wrists. The two of them together, hooked around his hips, fingers flat across the back, can almost close around his waist entirely. Richie gets cuddly, sometimes, especially after he smokes a bowl on their balcony, and the result is that Eddie thinks about those hands on his body at all sorts of inopportune times. Like right now. Sitting on the floor. Staring at them again.

Richie grins down at him now. "Did you try to scrub away a stain on a plate that turned out to be part of the pattern?"

"Fuck you, that was _one time_ ," Eddie growls, but it's enough to reach up for the hand, yanking Richie too hard, trying to throw him off balance.

Richie stumbles a little, laughing now, but pulls Eddie to his feet. Eddie lets himself be pulled but underestimates Richie's strength, maybe on purpose, maybe still drowned in the thought of _hands pushing him against the sink counter, hands sliding up under his ratty t-shirt, hands sliding back around to dip under his waistband_. He loses his footing as soon as he stands, crashing forward into Richie's chest. Another part of Richie he thinks of far too much for the two of them to be platonic roommates until they're in rocking chairs leaving the house to play fucking bridge each week.

He should step away but he stays there, too close to Richie, neck angling up to stare in his eyes. He's still laughing, quiet huffs of air between parted lips, blue eyes almost twinkling with amusement. His jaw is grizzly, three days worth of growth, and if he leaned up now to kiss him he would finally get to decide whether he liked beard burn.

Richie steps away first, dropping his hands from his hips. Eddie tries not to sigh. "So you found a venue?"

Richie starts talking again like he never stopped, voice pitchy and excited, hands waving as he talked, drawing out the story as he always does, and Eddie leans back against the counter to listen, trying not to think too much about his phone call. _He won't leave_.

* * *

When Richie finally gets to the point of his story, a long meandering road there, it's big news. Big. Madison Square Garden in fucking _April_ , big, two months away, bearing down on them like fucking Ozymandias in the desert. Richie is nervous because it's his first special since coming out, with a tweet sent out in August of last year, long after they were settled, that just said _what's up fuckers I'm not dead, just gay_. That was the beginning, and then it was interviews, late night shows, a series of commitments that Bee expertly scheduled so Richie would be able to leave New York on a Monday and be back by Wednesday.

Eddie is nervous for many reasons, some of them clinical, but the biggest one being that once Richie performs at MSG (which is good, it's incredible actually, and Eddie couldn't possibly be prouder), he performs elsewhere, a tour, national, probably in two legs but both legs long enough that it means he will be gone, that Eddie will be alone for the first time since Derry. And he will be fine, really he will, but it complicates several things.

It really only complicates one thing, one big thing, and that's Eddie's decision to tell him how he feels.

Bev is right, though. She so often is. But Eddie spends much of the next week double-checking. He wants to get it right, needs to set the stage, so he thinks about the weekend, how Richie has meetings on Saturday but has kept all of Sunday clear. Sunday. Sunday. It peels closer as the week rolls on, and when he complains about this to Mike, Mike just patiently reminds him _that's how the passage of time works_. He hangs up on him for that.

The rest of the week, though, he watches. If Richie notices he doesn't say anything, which makes Eddie concerned that if Richie doesn't notice that he has spent all week staring at him that maybe he _always_ spends this much time looking at Richie, and in that case, shouldn't Richie know? Shouldn't he have figured it out? Had he already, and was he just waiting for it to go away?

And the thing about the tour, the new material, is that it was good. It was really good, better than the shit that he spewed on late-night TV before. Eddie had watched him, a strange compulsion, finger always pressed to the channel button on the remote but never quite pushing down, letting whatever shitty set Richie did roll on until the credits hit. He didn't recognize him, not until he saw him at the Jade, but he couldn't look away.

Richie came out to him first, though. Before the world. Before the rest of their friends. It wasn't until a week after they moved in, when Richie was still fidgety, nervous being there, asking Eddie if he was sure he wanted to stay with him, like Eddie wouldn't have followed him back to LA if he went. He might have. He probably would have, once he remembered him.

At the end of the first week they were on the balcony, Eddie complaining as Richie smoked, some citrus strain that he insisted smelled just like tangerine but really was just fucking weed. Eddie stayed out there with him though, staring over the water. They tried to point out Bev and Ben's building, each guess worse than the last. Then Richie had turned to him, his lower lip pulled between his teeth, worrying it. Eddie tried to look him in the eyes but they kept slipping back to his mouth, to the teeth digging into soft pink flesh, to the way his tongue darted out to moisten his lips before talking.

He took another drag from his joint, sloppily rolled like he hadn't gotten any better at it since they were kids, and didn't meet Eddie's eyes. The words _I'm gay_ fell from his lips as smoke curled out of them.

Eddie didn't react at first. It took a moment. It was very difficult to stop his stream of consciousness, brain running faster than he could process, mouth racing to keep up, always talking a little too loud, too fast, too much. But this stopped him. He took a treasured minute to mull this over.

He waited too long, he knew, because Richie was squirming in the silence and stubbed out the joint on the railing, flicking it to the street below. Before Eddie could complain, Richie had turned to go back into the apartment, to bolt. He grabbed Richie’s arm and yanked him back, forcing him to turn around. Richie's eyes were wide, a little wet, and his jaw was clenched.

Eddie thanked him for telling him, still holding Richie's wrist, not wanting him to run again. Maybe it was the oppressive August heat on the balcony or the sounds of the city below them, maybe he had inhaled too much secondhand smoke, or maybe it was the fear in Richie's eyes, like Eddie's reaction was the answer, was the blueprint, but Eddie said, voice quieter than he thought possible, _me too_.

Richie looked at him then, blinking the tears from his eyes, and he pulled Eddie close, fingers intertwining, something soft, intimate. He thought for a moment they would kiss, mind racing, wondering if that's what he wanted, and if he wanted it _right then_ , and if it would hurt too much when Richie left. Instead, Richie just stared down at him, shy smile splitting his face. Like he was happy for them.

Eddie wonders if Richie would ever have come out to the rest of the world, or even their friends, if that night had gone differently. If Eddie had reacted poorly, like Richie seemed to fear. He wonders if this veers towards narcissism.

This week he watches Richie everywhere, from the couch to the balcony, every room of their house where he can catch a glimpse. His eyes open early in the mornings so he can watch Richie's routine. He sees him shuffle into the bathroom first, even in winter wearing soft cotton shorts that stop above his knees, some mornings a shirt but most mornings just endless skin, prickled with goosebumps. He weakly kicks the bathroom door closed behind him, light streaming out into the hallway through the crack, some days wide enough that he can see Richie's pillow-creased face in the mirror. Minutes later, he shuffles back out, leaning on Eddie's doorway, voice thick with sleep and calling out until Eddie rises blearily. Eddie hates waking up on weekdays, but this is one of his favourite routines. He has never gotten up at 6 so easily.

On Friday night he watches Richie cook dinner, sitting up on the island, feet dangling easily off the edge. Richie uses too much of the kitchen to cook, making more dishes than he needs to, spreading across from the spot next to the stove, all the way along the island to where Eddie is sitting. Friday night he is making one of Eddie's favourites—stuffed shells, something indulgent but something he can still work vegetables into. Eddie doesn't get to watch him cook often, food typically ready before he walks in, shaking off his long commute. Richie pulls the recipe up but doesn't look at it, relying on memory, on taste. They talk easily the whole time. He watches as Richie reaches into cupboards without looking in, knowing where each ingredient, where each bowl, where each utensil is without having to look. He watches as Richie, mid-story, walks backwards towards the fridge and doesn't need to look to pull the door open.

As the sauce simmers, Richie pours him a generous glass of chilled white wine, something mid-priced but pulled blindly off the shelf at the liquor store, Richie shrugging and saying he picked the wine because he _always wanted to go to Chile_ , like that was an answer. The wine is dry, fruity, easy to drink, and they eat their dinner on the couch, limbs loose, ankles hooked, the notch of Richie's ankle pressing just under his own. It feels nice. Homey.

On Saturday it's the balcony, a memory of their first week. They spent a lot of time on the balcony last summer, easing into fall. Winter left their balcony neglected, except for quick smoke breaks that Richie almost eliminated in the worst of December. February is still cold, hovering around zero tonight. The latest snowfall melted away, leaving the stone floor of the balcony clear, if slightly icy. Their breath comes out in foggy puffs, lips chapping in the breeze.

Richie wears loose charcoal sweats and a thick hoodie, pulled over top of another layer. He leans against the balcony, arching his back to leave his elbows on the cold metal railing. He listens intently, head cocked to the side, eyes fixed on Eddie's face. He pulls long, slow drags from his joint, letting the embers burn low before bringing it to his lips again. He offers it to Eddie and Eddie takes it, he sometimes does, because he never quite tires of how Richie's eyes light up when he accepts. He lets the smoke pull into his lungs, pushing aside the cycle of _throat cancer, lung cancer, smoke, burning_ to take a few long pulls, passing it back to Richie. Richie's smile softens as Eddie's story gets loopier, less focussed, asks probing questions to push him along when he loses his path. He laughs like Eddie's the funniest person in the world, like no one has ever laughed at what Eddie says. He almost kisses him there.

Sunday is the day, though. He made a note in his calendar, not the shared one (where Eddie's work events, Richie's meetings, dinners with their friends, and their own plans intermingle), but his work calendar. It feels wrong when he first puts it in the work calendar and he contemplates giving it a code name in their shared calendar—they will both be there anyway and, hopefully, it will be something they share. He narrowly decides against it. Richie pays close attention to the calendar, closer than you might expect, but Bee has got him in the habit of checking and it means he’s quick to notice when Eddie adds something. Eddie didn’t think scheduling in an 8PM “talk” without additional details would do anything positive for Richie’s anxiety.

So he puts it in the work calendar, uncomfortable at first, wondering if it was crazy to create a separate calendar just for this. His therapist didn’t call it crazy, but she came close. He decided against it. It was fine to have it on his work calendar.

Now, five to eight, Eddie thinks maybe he was right to put this on the work calendar. He feels like he does before he has to go into a meeting, one of the quarterly ones the senior partners have to host. All he has to do is talk about his performance and the performance of his team but it always feels a little bit like scraping himself open for the world to see. This is a thousand times worse and he isn't even wearing a suit for the occasion. He could, though. Maybe if he put on a suit he would feel a bit better.

He shakes that thought from his mind quickly as something nearing true absurdity. It is a normal Sunday night. They're on season eight of Bob's Burgers, a show that grew on Eddie so fast he is now the one to insist on binging it on Sunday nights. Richie laughs harder because that is how he laughs, sound always coming from deep in his chest, always filling the room, but Eddie laughs too.

There is nothing unusual about how they are sitting either. Eddie, who asserts the importance of good posture all week, allows himself a respite on Sundays, where he leans with his back against the armrest, both feet in Richie's lap. This is normal. Richie's hand resting on his calf or around his ankle is normal, fidgeting absently with the hem of his sock while he watches TV.

The thing is, Eddie rehearsed this bit. He spent an awful lot of time yesterday afternoon while Richie was away writing it down, writing it down again, and shredding the evidence in the little document shredder that he keeps by the desk in the living room. Incriminating evidence of affection, gone.

His phone reads _19:58_ and it's almost time. He hasn't paid attention to the last three episodes, running the scenarios over in his mind. The worst thing he could do is leave, and Bev said he won't leave, but he still might. So Eddie is prepared for that, as prepared as he can be for the prospects of losing everything they have built together. He wants to trust Bev, especially when she seems so certain, but he feels trapped between possibility and impossibility and isn't sure which is which.

Here is what he has settled on, something straightforward and honest, about 200 words cut out in the editing process: "Richie, you're very important to me. You always have been, since we were kids. You came to New York to stay with me during one of the worst times in my life and you're still here. I want you to stay with me, if you want to, but I want you to know first: I have feelings for you."

Mechanical, rehearsed, perfectly executed. Like his quarterly meetings at work. The numbers on his phone shift to _20:00_ and he coughs quietly.

"Rich," the name catches in his throat, and already this hasn't gone to plan, but he thinks there is still time to recover, to stay on script.

But then Richie looks over at him, head turning slowly, eyes still darting back to the screen for a moment before settling on Eddie. The echo of his last laugh settles across his face, shifting up into a smile when he meets Eddie's eyes. Eddie is the only person who gets to see him here, like this, the stage version of himself half-persona, half-Richie melted away to the parts that are just Richie—still loud, annoying, brash, crude, but also sweet, attentive, patient, kind.

Eddie is the only one who gets to see him at the end of the day, bright patterns shed for loose, well-worn house clothes. Today he wears a t-shirt from _The Shins_ concert he went to in 2002, a little tight on him but soft, washed so many times that it just says _ins_. It is translucent where it stretches over parts where Richie has grown out of it, in his shoulders, around his middle, where Eddie wants to reach out and touch.

Sometimes he thinks selfishly that maybe he is the only one who gets to see this smile, an upward curve of the lips, slightly parted, enough to bring out the laugh lines in his cheeks, the crows feet sprawling from the corners of his eyes. The way his eyes are always wide, questioning, curious. Every single rehearsed, measured, careful thought goes out the window.

"I love you," Eddie says.

Richie blinks in rapid succession, eight times, by Eddie's count, and eight seems good, it seems like a good number of blinks to process the information. Then Richie's smile widens and Eddie _knows_ eight blinks was right. He smiles back, and when Richie leans towards him he pulls himself up from the armrest, leaning closer. Richie reaches a hand out and god, Eddie has thought so many times about kissing Richie, has seen this very scene play out in his head a thousand times, Richie's hand curling around his cheek, or around the side of his neck, pulling him in. Richie reaches further though, for Eddie's hair, and he has thought of this too, of Richie's long fingers threaded in his hair, pulling it loose from the pomade at the end of his workday or when it is pliant and clean like this.

He shivers, at Richie's smile splitting his face, at his fingers dragging along his scalp, and _fuck_ rehearsal, this is perfect. Richie is going to kiss him while he's smiling with his hand in Eddie's hair and maybe he can crawl onto his lap and—

And then Richie ruffles his hair, like he is a particularly large dog.

"Aww, I love you too, buddy," he says, and then leans back to sit on the couch, eyes returning to the screen.

Eddie stays there for a moment, upright, lips tingling, pins and needles. He stares at the side of Richie's head, a smile still spread across his face, eyes fond.

He almost says _not like that_ , or _literally fuck you, you haven't said that to me once in eight months and now you're calling me fucking buddy,_ but he isn't sure that there is anything he could say to quell the wave of pure humiliation cresting in his stomach. Not like a wave down at the marina, but one of the waves he's only seen in movies. A breaker. A tsunami. A mortification tsunami that Eddie desperately hopes will drown him. He thinks of the Pixies song.

Instead he lays back down on the armrest, Richie looking over at him again with another gentle smile and squeezing his ankle as he does so, and resolves never to try that fucking bullshit again.

* * *

Eddie didn't expect Sunday to open a dam. After a few more episodes, a batch of popcorn that Richie cooks from scratch so Eddie can watch exactly how much oil and salt goes into it, and another couple hours of Eddie being completely incapable of thinking of anything except for the word _buddy_ , which might be the worst word in the English language, they head to bed. They fight for space in the mirror, elbows bumping as they brush their teeth. Richie leaves the bathroom first, a smudge of toothpaste drying on his lip that Eddie wants to kiss away. He puts both hands on Eddie's hips to slide past him like that doesn't make Eddie's brain fucking implode and says it again: _sleep well, love you_ , as he slips back down the hallway, not waiting for an answer.

After that it's fucking endless. Richie says it in the mornings now before Eddie leaves for work, on the weekends when Richie leaves for a meeting, before they go to bed, and what the _fuck_ is Eddie supposed to do with that?

Oh. And the phone calls, of course.

"—and Bee booked this meeting with enough space after for me to come home and nap before my meeting tonight, which is all I could ask for. I can pick up dinner on the way home, how do you feel about Malaysian? Oh man, I can't believe I'm almost at my stop. Someone on here is playing a saxophone!"

Eddie's in his office, phone squeezed between his ear and shoulder as he picks at his lunch, and wonders if he should be seeing a chiropractor again with how much he is talking on the phone. It has been three weeks since The Incident. They say I love you at least three times a day. Coincidentally, at least three times a day, Eddie contemplates the value of slamming his hand in a door or eating glass.

"I'm sure you can find someone playing a saxophone on the way home," Eddie says.

His lunch is good. It's always good. Richie puts the sauce separately so Eddie can decide how much he wants poured over whatever combination of grain-green-protein-fat Richie has concocted this week. He always gives Eddie more sauce than he knows he uses, like he's hoping one day Eddie will give in and drench the food. Eddie’s on the fucking verge.

"This is a tenor though, too many people are slinging their altos out here," Richie whines.

"I didn't know you had such a preference for subway sax."

"We can talk about my sax preferences," Richie says. Eddie can hear the smile. Sometimes he wonders if he says things just to set Richie up, a subconscious desire to be annoyed. "Love to play the horn. I'll blow it all night. Gotta tell me how I'm doing though, positive reinforcement."

"I hope you fall on the tracks," Eddie says, mostly because now he is picturing Richie on his knees, flushed, lips spit-slick, looking up at Eddie for praise, and Eddie really doesn't need this on his lunch break, or ever, because now he has a specific image to accompany his vague imaginings.

He presses the heel of his hand to his groin and hopes that some force of nature will strike him dead.

"Hmm, not one of my usual kinks but I'm open to exploration," Richie says.

"I'm hanging up now." There is only so much he can take at once, because now the Richie in his brain is under Eddie's desk even though all the walls are glass and all he can think about is what these _usual kinks_ are.

"Wait, wait, wait—" Richie says, as he pulls the phone away from his ear. Eddie sighs.

"What?"

"Malaysian? Usual place?"

"Yeah. Zero spice, you hear me?" Eddie demands, a phantom itch in his throat from last time.

"It's not really fair that I can't get spicy food because you won't keep your fork to yourself," Richie complains.

"Life isn't fair."

Richie scoffs. Eddie can hear the station announcement, Richie approaching 23rd Street Station, a block from his manager's office. He's only a few blocks away from Eddie's office. He knows this because sometimes Richie will drop by after a midday meeting, looking deeply out of place on his floor wearing ratty jeans and bright button ups. The receptionist, Dan, knows him now, barely looks up when he walks in except to tell him whether Eddie is in a meeting or not. He was difficult to charm, even by Richie's standards, but he found out through the assistant grapevine that Dan and his partner still watch SNL and Richie gave him good seats near Christmas. They have an understanding now. Dan occasionally asks after him, almost fond.

"Not with you, babe. I'll call you later. Love you!" Richie says as he steps through the subway doors, the bustling station sounds flooding into the background.

"Love you too," Eddie says, and hates himself, and throws his phone hard onto his desk after he hangs up.

Eddie slumps in his chair and lets himself feel sorry for himself for five long minutes before picking his phone back up. He stares between Mike’s and Bev's names, trying to decide the degree to which he hates himself today.

He decides he's at about an eleven on a scale of ten and dials Bev.

"It's noon," she says, instead of hi, although Ben shouts _hi Eddie_ in the background.

"Sorry, wrong number, thought I called my best friend and not the _what time is it_ line," Eddie snaps.

"Aww, best friend?"

Eddie grimaces and shovels more of his lunch into his mouth, bright citrusy notes jumping out first followed by something more mellow, a deep umami flavour. It's delicious. It makes him more annoyed. In the depressingly long list of things he would miss about Richie, his cooking was high (after only: Richie's laugh, Richie's jokes, Richie's patience, the sound of Richie's voice first thing in the morning, the way Richie sometimes touches him for no reason, the feeling of sitting together in silence on the couch).

"Slip of the tongue. Mike's my best friend," he corrects as soon as he swallows the bite of his lunch.

"Not Richie?"

"I don't want to talk about Richie. How's the home office?" he asks.

He doesn't want to talk about the home office, but he is put on speakerphone again to hear about the colour scheme—a tasteful, muted grey-blue, an eggshell white, a grey-stained wood flooring, cool tones that would look classy and clean, something completely distinct from the warmth of their home, all fall colours and coziness, bordering on cluttered after long Sunday trips to slowly make their way through every flea market in the boroughs.

They tell him about the desks they have picked out, Ben having found an architect desk, solid, a deep oak from an antique shop out of the city. He and Richie have a desk in their living room, small, mostly for the occasional time when Eddie brings work home. A spot for him to work, scowling, on Saturdays, clunky work laptop occupying most of the space. He hates working at home, mostly because Eddie likes the structure of working 9-5, Monday to Friday, then coming home to have pockets of time that are Not Work.

Not like Richie who thrives in shifting between tasks (a different neuroses, but Eddie recognizes it as a neuroses nonetheless). A chameleon, one moment stirring shakshuka on the stove, the next moment doing a phone interview, still stirring, charming and funny, the next moment scrawling a messy grocery list, and still the next writing material on his phone, legs thrown over the back of the couch. He thrives in the movement between tasks, while Eddie can barely think of _anything_ other than Richie most days.

"Maybe I do want to talk about Richie," he says as soon as he comes out of his thoughts, interrupting Ben. "Sorry—that was—that was rude. I do want to hear about the home office, I just—"

Ben laughs, not a mean sound. "I thought you were listening too closely."

Guilt hits him in the face like a brick. He calls Bev a lot. Daily. And they talk about plenty of things. Bev tells him all about the next season's designs and on each call he understands more fashion terminology, can picture what tulle and chiffon look like, even has a tenuous grasp on trends. They Facetime while online shopping, so often that Richie suggests, amused but not critical, that Eddie has a shopping problem. They help each other pick out colours and styles, and Bev _listens to him._ They talk about her divorce, because Ben is supportive and doing his best but Eddie is the only one of them all who really understands, not like Bill whose divorce was easy and bloodless. Mostly, recently, they talk about Richie.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out, nervous, dropping his elbows down onto his desk, jarring his keyboard out of place. "Richie keeps saying that he loves me. Like, all the time."

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"No! Well, yes! But—but not like this. Like in the mornings he pops his head out of the kitchen when he hears me grabbing my keys to shout it down the hallway. And he just said it now, on the phone, and he called me _babe_ , which he always does, but it's _worse now_ because it's close to those words." Eddie has started fidgeting with his hair, picking at the bits of pomade he didn't smooth out enough this morning, enjoying how it crackles under his fingers.

"Do you say it back?" Ben asks.

"Of course I do. Because like—what, what am I going to do? Not say it? Like an asshole?" His hair is falling in his face now and he wonders if he remembered to replace his work pomade after his last hair breakdown the previous week. He asked Richie to pick some up from Walgreens, but had he been yet?

"Richie wouldn't want you to say it back if it makes you uncomfortable, you know," Ben says, close to the phone now, and Eddie wonders how these sessions quickly became joint therapy instead of one-on-one. "He loves you either way, whether you say it or not."

He cannot begin to address the second half of Ben’s statement. He can’t think about conditionality. He can’t think about how Richie seems to love them all, with his whole chest, with no reservations. How Richie loves him like nothing Eddie does could change it. He can’t think too long about what love without conditions means because then he slides back down the mountain of _I don’t deserve this_. So he doesn’t think about it.

"It doesn't make me uncomfortable, it makes me feel stupid," he admits. "Dozens of times a week I tell him I'm in love with him. And like, what he doesn’t get is that I want to spend every weekend for the rest of my fucking life going to farmers markets together and buying fucking monogrammed towel sets and travelling to places like—like Chile, to pick up stupid souvenirs that will clutter the entry way and won't match. And dozens of times per week he smiles fondly and says it to me, just happy his repressed little anxious friend is finally opening up."

There is silence on the other end of the line for several long, painful seconds, and once again Eddie considers the merits of walking into traffic and hoping for the best.

"You want to go to Chile?" Bev asks.

"No, he wants to go to Chile, and I just want to go with him. Wherever. Including Chile."

Bev lets out a long sigh, and Eddie thinks that about covers it. "There's a lot to unpack there."

"I know this," Eddie says. "I know this but I feel like I'm working at fucking—fucking Fedex and just shoving all of this into boxes and I don't know where to put it all. I don't know what to do with everything I'm feeling. Do you know we hold hands, sometimes?"

Ben sighs this time, which feels worse. "Every time you tell us something it sounds more like you're dating."

"I know! That's my problem! It's like all the dating without any of the perks," he says. Then he frowns. "No—I mean, there are lots of perks. Many perks. I'm not just—I don't just want him for—" Every time he talks he feels closer to dying.

"Honey, I think it's pretty clear that you don't just want him for his dick," Bev says, stifling laughter. Eddie's face is so hot he grabs a post-it note and angrily scribbles _get Dan to fix the fucking HVAC_ on it.

"Well, well, good, but I also—want that," he finishes lamely.

He spends a lot of time hearing about Bev's sex life. He had never had a friend like that before, who would just say things like _Ben ate me out for thirty minutes yesterday on the couch and honestly I'm reconsidering my new stance against marriage_. He could never have pictured himself listening to that, it was the sort of talk Myra always complained about at work, and he thought even more that hearing about his two friends fucking would be the last thing he wanted. Instead it's comforting, sweet even, and fills a little gap in his consciousness that he hates to admit exists, a little love for gossip.

He has never been able to do the same on these calls, to put a voice to what he wants and how he feels, to talk about Richie in the same way that he thinks about him, once he can hear him snoring lightly from down the hall, or in the shower when he's not home, or once on the couch in a horribly mistimed incident that Richie came home part way through and made Eddie resolve to never try that again.

"I think about him all the time. Like that. Sexually," he forces out, and that's it. He wonders if it's a record-breaking rainfall season because these dams aren't holding. "He'll put his hand on my back and instead of being normal and calm I think about him pushing me down over the kitchen counter, even though kitchens are for food, not for sex. Sometimes he's just—just standing there, on the balcony, when I come home from work, and his shirts are all too tight so they stretch across his chest and I literally almost drop to my knees. On the balcony. The balcony!"

When he finishes, Bev is stifling another laugh and even Ben has started to giggle. He thinks normally the laughter would make him angrier, would make him boil over and say something unpleasant, something he doesn't mean, something targeted to make people back off and give him space when he doesn't know how to ask for those things in gentler words.

He thinks maybe he's going insane, truly insane, because their laughter makes him laugh instead, too loud for midday at the office, his neighbour glaring at him and getting up to close both of their doors. He laughs harder, tears springing to his eyes when he realizes he has had this _entire conversation_ with his office door open, that his assistant was staring, that all the assistants were staring, that the associate two doors down was shooting his neighbour a nasty look, probably because she was enjoying front row seats to the Eddie Kaspbrak breakdown. They weren't uncommon at the office, he hates to admit, but they are usually about insurance risks and not the risk that he'll jump his _best friend-roommate-almost boyfriend_.

"I have to talk to him, don't I?" he asks, miserable, when they all stop laughing.

"Yes, sweetie, I think you do," Bev says.

He stares at the sauce container and dumps the whole thing over his lunch.

* * *

Eddie isn't sure why he bothers to plan, why he spends so much time making notes, this week even a flowchart, to consider all contingencies, when Richie seems to make it his life goal to keep Eddie slightly off-kilter.

"Wakey wakey!" Richie yells into his room, too early for a Saturday.

Saturdays are when Eddie sleeps in until 11. Sundays are when Richie barrels in at 8AM to drag him to brunch, so determinately scheduled that Eddie has developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of Richie's footfalls in the hallway Sunday morning.

But this is Saturday, so when Richie storms into his room Eddie is deep asleep, in the middle of an embarrassing dream. He feels caught, Richie several feet into his room, roguish smile on his face. It would be less embarrassing if it was a sex dream. Instead, it was the two of them in a greenhouse, labyrinthian aisles, poking at fresh herbs and wondering if they could keep them alive on the balcony, holding hands. Eddie hates these dreams the most.

"It's fucking Saturday you waste of space," he snaps, pulling a pillow over his face.

He hears Richie's feet on the hardwood, stifled by his socks, and he stops right next to Eddie's bed. Eddie groans quietly into the pillow, now thinking both about how _annoyed he is to be woken up_ and how quickly his body is reacting to Richie just standing next to his bed.

Richie pries the pillow from his hands, wrestling him a little for it, before tossing it to the end of the bed. Richie grins down at him, hair still damp from the shower, smelling like cedarwood and clean laundry. Eddie's eyes are drawn to a drop of water crawling down Richie's neck and he wants to lick it almost as much as he wants to kick him.

"Someone didn't check the calendar," Richie taunts. “I switched brunch to today.”

"You didn’t put anything in the fucking calendar," Eddie says, pulling his blanket over his face.

Richie yanks the comforter from his hands and pulls it most of the way off Eddie's body. Eddie yelps and brings his knees up immediately, far too aware of the tenting in his sweats. This only draws more attention to himself, because Richie's eyes follow the movement and definitely settle between Eddie's thighs, his smile shifting to something gleeful. He wonders if he could make it to his window to jump before Richie says another fucking word.

"Oh, go fuck yourself, it's fucking human physiology," Eddie says instead, deciding that the icy window pane would take too long to open and that maybe, just maybe, launching himself from the window would only make Richie smugger.

"I didn't say anything," Richie says, raising his hands in front of him, the same mean little smile on his lips. Eddie wants to kiss him. "Look, we have a reservation. Get the rest of yourself up."

Eddie swears at his back as he walks out of the room, not because he's actually angry, but because it makes Richie laugh the whole walk to the kitchen.

This is how they find themselves at Mezotto, one of their regular places, just after 10, with their server bringing them the first round of the bottomless mimosas Richie talked him into ordering.

He prefers to drive, not understanding Richie's affection for the subway, but mimosas are his weakness, so once Richie said they were going to Mezotto it was a done deal. They walked, layered up for the cool March wind, to the train station.

He told Bev and Ben that Richie holds his hand sometimes, but most of the time it's on the subway. Eddie has been on the subway more since Richie moved here than he had in his twenty years in New York. It's dirty and crowded, too many people packed into the cars even on a Saturday, but Richie does a perfect imitation of the subway car voice to take his mind off of it. Eddie won't sit in the train, but also refuses to touch the subway poles, having read all sorts of stories and seen truly scarring viral videos about things people do on the trains, so instead he stands. Richie holds onto the poles easily, unconcerned, and keeps Eddie stable. Usually it's just their fingers laced together. Sometimes, when the train is fuller, Richie wraps one arm around his waist to keep him even closer, chests bumping together, Eddie breathing against his neck. He almost likes the subway when it is full.

They sit right near the window in the restaurant, one of the high tables, Richie's back to the window so Eddie can stare out onto the street. They are right next to the bright orange brick wall. They sit with elbows on the table, leaning into their conversation. Manners be damned, Eddie thinks, if elbows on the table means he can be closer to the shine in Richie's eyes.

They don't open the food menus, and when their server cycles back Eddie orders for both of them—the mushroom omelette for himself, the challah french toast for Richie, tooth-achingly sweet and ideal for Eddie, because he can steal bites of it without technically ordering it. It isn't until their orders get to their table, steam curling from his omelette, that Eddie notices a man with a camera outside the restaurant. He scowls, flipping him off, and Richie doesn't have to look to start laughing.

"At this point, I think they have more photos of you flipping them off than they have of me," Richie teases.

Eddie has something to say about that, about how repulsive celebrity worship is, about how invasive the paparazzi are, _especially_ since Richie came out, like they are just waiting for the fucking punchline or for him to slip up. Instead, he thinks about his plans to confess again on Sunday night and he thinks that maybe the problem with last time was the day of the week, or the time of day, or the place. Maybe here at brunch, bodies straining to be closer across the table, is the place. Like a date.

"They think we're dating," he says.

Because they do. Eddie doesn't use Twitter, not exactly. His profile sports the default icon and there are no identifying details there, his username just a string of numbers. He only uses it to keep a somewhat obsessive eye on Richie's mentions, on the media attention he gets, because Richie pretends it doesn't bother him but sometimes a day will roll around where Richie is quiet, mouth twisted into a frown, never quite rude but distant, and that's when Eddie checks Twitter. Most people aren't too bad, but every so often an article will circulate that's little more than a character assassination. Eddie never mentions them, lets Richie run his course, but he likes to know.

The point is that Eddie sees the photos. Photos of them at the movies, at the grocery store, here at brunch. The photos are invasive, startling reminders that Richie has no privacy, by extension, that Eddie's privacy is qualified when it comes to Richie. They also make Eddie's chest tight. Sometimes they catch him looking at Richie, eyes wide, and he wonders how Richie can see these photos and not know.

Richie takes a long moment to answer, not looking up from his french toast, instead pushing a strawberry through the syrup on the plate. "Yeah."

"Does it bother you?" Eddie asks, watching as the single cameraman moves on.

"Of course it does. It's none of their fucking business." He hesitates, fork still poking at the strawberry, which has sopped up enough syrup to surely be unpalatable. "Doesn't it bother you?"

Eddie thinks about how much he hates when someone appears behind Richie, camera out, or phone raised in the air between them, like he's an animal at the zoo and not a fucking human being with feelings and boundaries. He thinks about how some people are nice, they come up to Richie saying things that make Richie tear up about what it meant for him to come out. Others aren't so nice. They march up to Richie and demand something, like he owes them something just because he likes to get up on stage and make people laugh, like he isn’t doing enough for them. He thinks about their photos on TMZ, the _Richie Tozier's Married Man_ headline from during Eddie's divorce that made Richie furious, on angry phone calls all day even as Eddie tried to tell him it was fine, it didn't bother him.

Mostly, Eddie thinks, what bothers him is that the world gets to speculate and reach conclusions about what he and Richie are doing but never once do they get to ask each other the same question. If the rest of the world wants clarity, imagine how he fucking feels.

"It doesn't," he says. Richie looks up at him. "Because I love you.”

Richie’s frown smooths into a smile and Eddie wants the ceiling to cave in because he doesn’t _get it_. “I love you t—”

“No. No. Stop. I mean like—” Eddie breathes in a sharp, deep breath, and the worry lines in Richie’s forehead return. “Your laundry is a fucking disaster. I never have any fucking idea what’s clean. And after a load, I fold everything nicely in the basket that I put in your room and then later I find half of it just draped over your chair. Like, why the fuck am I folding your laundry if you don’t put it away?”

Richie’s face twists into something between amused and affronted. “Well you’re not the perfect roommate either.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you are, actually. It annoys me and I like it. Like I think it’s annoying because _I fold it for you_ and it’s fucking ridiculous that you won’t just put in the dresser. But I like folding your laundry, so I’m not going to stop.”

Richie puts his fork down beside his plate and leans back into his chair, eyes fixed on Eddie’s face. This is worse than him pushing the same strawberry around on his place, so Eddie puts his fork down too and drains his third mimosa all at once, a long swallow, watching Richie stare at his throat. That’s pretty fucking telling, right? Right? Eddie hopes so.

“You like doing my laundry,” Richie says slowly. Eddie puts the flute down too hard and nods.

“Because it means—it means we live together. And that you’re there. I feel like it means you’re not leaving, when you put your clothes all over the house and when I pick up your socks from under the coffee table. Because I think about it all the time. You leaving. I think about your life back in LA and your house with the pool and I just think—god, he’s just, he’s going to go home at some point, isn’t he?"

At this Richie’s face twists into something different, and he leans back over the table, one hand reaching for Eddie’s flailing wrists. “Wait, Eds, slow down, I told you I—”

Eddie swats him away. “I think I need to say this all at once or I might just—just stop.”

Richie doesn’t interrupt him again but swallows, hard, tongue flicking out to lick across his lips. His elbows are back on the table now, leaning close, chest extended over his plate. He’s close enough that Eddie could kiss him. Maybe a kiss would be clearer than whatever runaway train he’s trying to wrangle now but it also might scare Richie.

“I think about it a lot because I don’t want you to leave. Not just now. Like I want us to retire and move upstate together and learn how to fucking crochet or something,” Eddie says, and Richie’s eyebrows do something utterly bewitching, a waggle, a pull together in the middle.

He has seen movies, more since moving in with Richie, and he has thought about love confessions a lot. How some sound like they are asking for forever, how others are a goodbye. How some are sweet, shy, and fearful, how some fall out through tears. How others are brave and shouted together. Mostly, Eddie thinks about how they’re all honest. He isn’t sure he can manage the rest of it but he can aim for honesty.

The server appears with another pair of bright pink grapefruit mimosas but it’s too late for Eddie to stop, words barrelling out from his throat.

“Because I love you. Not in the way you love me, maybe. In the way that when you grab my hand on the crowded street I get goosebumps. In the way where I think about kissing you so often I asked my therapist if it was clinical, and she asked if I wanted a diagnosis of being in love. Which was embarrassing, but she was right.”

Now Richie is staring, eyes wide, brows climbing most of the way to his hairline, quite a feat when it’s receding as far as it is. His lips are slightly parted. He looks stunned. Like he didn’t see this coming. Almost as stunned as their server, who lets out a little gasp before dropping the mimosas on their table and fleeing. Eddie squeezes his eyes shut now, for a few long, shuddering breaths, counting to ten and back down to steady himself again.

Eddie opens his eyes again and Richie is still staring. “This didn’t go well. I just—I had to tell you, because it’s been somewhere between eight months and thirty years and I’ve loved you this whole time. And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. Really. We can—we can still be friends. If you’re okay with that. I just had to tell you so you can leave if you want before it gets a little too hard for me.”

There’s a long, tense beat where the air seems to thicken around him. Is it warm in here?

“I told you last week I sold the LA place,” is all Richie says at first, and Eddie wonders how easy it would be to stab himself with a butter knife.

“No you didn’t.”

Richie frowns. “Yeah, I did. It’s been on the market for weeks. I phoned you to tell you. Like, we talked on the phone about this.”

When Eddie shuffled through the worst case scenarios he thought of many things. He thought about shouting, even though it wasn’t Richie’s style. He thought about that sad, hurt look that Eddie sometimes triggers when he says something too mean, something he always falls over himself to apologize for. He thought about Richie leaving. He thought about Richie letting him down easy. He didn’t think about Richie _not even fucking acknowledging it_.

“Fuck the house. That’s—that’s not the fucking point. Did that sound like the point?” Eddie asks, clenching his jaw so hard that it hurts.

“I mean, a little?” Richie says, the side of his mouth quirking up, a wobbly little grin.

And that’s when Eddie notices.

The other thing about romantic comedies, which they watch a lot of, usually as a double feature with a more _serious_ film that Eddie suggests, is that Richie cries at almost all of them. He cries a lot at movies. Eddie used to laugh at him for it but now he thinks it’s sweet, thinks that Richie is so good at understanding how characters are feeling, the weight of their emotions. He thinks it means that Richie has a capacity for empathy that others don’t see. He thinks Richie knows that Eddie is more afraid of Richie leaving than of Richie not loving him.

But that isn’t what he notices, because he knew that all along. He knows how much Richie cares. He thinks he almost believed Bev, when she talked about impossibility the other week. He thinks Richie makes him believe a little in unconditionality. What he notices is that Richie’s eyes are glistening, pupils wide, pooling with tears.

So he tries again. Third time’s the charm. “I love you.”

Richie doesn’t hesitate this time, doesn’t say anything, just lunges over the table, elbow knocking one of the flutes off the table. It hits the ground in a horrific shatter but Eddie doesn’t care, he isn’t listening, because Richie’s has one hand curled around the back of his neck and the other hand cupped around his jaw, the same wobbly smile on his lips as he presses their mouths together.

Someone gasps, Eddie nearly knocks over his own mimosa glass, and they’re making a scene, they certainly are, not the first kiss he imagined, but Eddie surges across the table to deepen the kiss, noses bump before they find their groove, lips sliding together, mouths open just enough to suck at each other’s lips, and Richie makes a soft, pleased sound against his lips. Eddie decides he likes beard burn.

They kiss until Eddie pushes his tongue past Richie’s mouth and he moans around it, and they both remember where they are, pulling away quickly. Richie’s cheeks are flushed but creased in his widest smile. Eddie’s chest feels light and for a moment he doesn’t think about the server now rushing to clean up their glass and the fact that Richie’s shirt dipped in maple syrup and how Eddie has eggs on his sweater.

Richie doesn’t look away from him, not when he apologizes for the broken glass, not when he asks for extra napkins, not when he picks the strawberry off his plate to push past his lips, syrup slipping down his fingers, grinning wildly when he notices Eddie watching him sucking the web between his thumb and pointer. He stares at him until they’re alone at their table again and the staring has stopped, except for sneaky glances, maybe a photo or two, as someone in the back of the restaurant asks, a little too loudly, _Is that Richie Tozier?_

“I love you too,” Richie says finally, blinking for what seems like the first time since they kissed. “If it wasn’t obvious.”

Eddie clears his throat, trying to stop smiling, cheek aching. “It wasn’t. You should have said something.”

“You should have said something,” he says back, childish.

“I tried,” Eddie says, scowling. “And you called me fucking _buddy_. Buddy. If you ever call me buddy again I’ll fucking gut you.”

Richie blinks, six times, not as much as on the couch that day. “ _Oh_. That was you trying to tell me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he hisses. “You fucking moron.”

Richie laughs, loudly, drawing attention to them again, and a hot flush crawls up Eddie’s neck but he doesn’t stop him. He loves that sound. He hopes he will be able to listen to it for a long, long time.

Richie smiles at him, his laugh still in the air. “Well, I love you, honey. I have all along.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Eddie asks, shovelling eggs into his mouth now, too quickly, thinking about the subway ride home and how he could press close against Richie’s chest this time no matter how full it was.

Richie shrugs easily. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

That, Eddie thinks, he can understand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come hang out on twitter @beverlymarshian.


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